MOBILE, Alabama -- A former oil company executive convicted of engineering an elaborate shell game of fraudulent bank drafts to conceal cash flow shortages will go to prison — but not nearly as long as he originally faced.

After a nearly 2-hour hearing today, Chief U.S. District Judge William Steele sentenced defendant Richard Blow to 8 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised released. But the judge determined that a significant enhancement related to the amount of loss to BankTrust did not apply.

Steele said he does not believe Blow deserved the same probation sentence handed down to his 2 co-defendants, who cooperated early in the investigation and provided the FBI with key information about how the scheme worked.

“I really wish you had come before this court and said, ‘I did it. I’m sorry for it. I accept responsibility,’” Steele told Blow. “You basically said to the government, ‘Take your best shot.’ And their best shot was to convict you.”

Steele in March found the 61-year-old Fairhope resident guilty in a nonjury trial of bank fraud and a conspiracy charge. Blow had been part owner and chief operating officer of Merritt Oil, a distributor that sold oil and gas to convenience stores. Prosecutors put on evidence that the company set up a separate account for some $160 million of bad bank drafts on customers’ accounts.

According to testimony at trial, Merritt Oil would use those drafts to pay Shell Oil Co. and other fuel suppliers and then try to find money from other sources to make up the shortfall before the bank rejected the transactions.

The amount of bad transfers totaled $1.65 million when BankTrust officials discovered the problem in 2009. The bank loaned Merritt money to pay off those bank drafts and to keep the company in business so it pay off the full debt. Costello said that stands today at slightly less than $2 million.

Defense attorney Allen Dale argued that his client’s crime was not one of greed but an ill-fated attempt to keep Merritt’s suppliers paid and the flow of gasoline running. Merritt had fallen on to hard times because the economic downturn prevented its mom-and-pop customers from being able to pay.

“He was not stuffing is pockets,” he said. “He was trying to pay Shell Oil. Indeed, he was trying to keep his company afloat.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Costello said Blow essentially used the bank’s money to extend himself credit.

“Mr. Dale argues this wasn’t a result of greed, but it was,” Costello said. “He cheated. He lied and cheated, and he stole.”

Costello also rejected Dale’s characterization that that the money transfers that Blow authorized were for bills that the customers owned.

“The fact that Merritt was owed money by its customers did not entitle them to take the money from their accounts,” he said, adding that it would be no different than if the defendant and gone into their homes and taken property to collect the debts.